Seib & Wessel: What We’re Reading Friday

The current financial calm in Europe offers a welcome reprieve, but also “a dangerously lulling environment,” warns Alessandro Leipold (@ALeipold), chief economist of the Lisbon Council and a former IMF staffer. This calm stands on shaky ground. Financial conditions are largely disconnected from developments on the ground. Its persistence cannot be taken for granted and is likely to be tested in the months ahead. [Lisbon Council]

Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) says the George W. Bush-Barack Obama years will be remembered for “an unprecedented erosion of civil liberties and a disregard for transparency.” Mr. Obama, “despite clear and popular promises to the contrary,” has continued the Bush policies. He failed to shift the balance between security and freedom to a better place. [National Journal]

Michigan Democrat John Dingell, as of Friday the longest serving member of Congress ever (57 years), tells MSNBC’s Chuck Todd that President Obama’s inexperience shows. “I think he had the smallest Rolodex ever when he hit town. And he moved so fast he never had any chance to build scar tissue, to learn politics, to be hurt,” he says. “Because you gotta be hurt in this business so that you’ll toughen and so that you’ll learn.” [Politico]

Humorist P.J. O’Rourke (@PJORourke), a space enthusiast, goes to the 29th National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. Everyone who’s anyone in the space business is there — except NASA. “Sequester has every government agency trying not to look wasteful,” he explains. “Government travel to any kind of meeting has been on a short tether.” But, he adds, “a National Space Symposium without NASA was like a White House Correspondents’ Dinner without journalists. That is to say, it didn’t matter as much as you’d think.” [Weekly Standard]

Matt Cooper (@mattizcoop) traces the rise and fall of Eric Holder‘s reputation from Reagan-appointed judge and Clinton-appointed prosecutor respected by both sides to the messy end to his tenure as deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration to Obama attorney general under attack from left and right. [National Journal]

Before resigning from Congress, Jesse Jackson Jr. worked on several fronts to help a longtime family friend secure what could have been a lucrative string of business deals with for-profit education companies, including arranging a meeting with Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Later, the friend gave him a $25,000 check to pay personal debts. [WSJ]

Conservative figure Steve Lonegan, who previously ran against New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and lost, has jumped into New Jersey’s special Senate race, declaring that he’ll raise “millions” to win the race. [PolitickerNJ]

Nobel laureates in economics talk about how they invest their retirement savings. [Squared Away]

In May, 3.15 million Americans had been out of a work for a full year or more and were still looking. That was up 65,000 from April, but down 651,000 from a year ago. [BLS]

Seventy-five percent of U.K. financial service workers think some people in their organizations are paid excessively, including 66% of senior managers. [WSJ]

Of Americans who own tablets, 26% prefer digital magazines to paper and 39% prefer e-books to printed ones. [Mequoda]

In the first quarter, new Federal Reserve data show, rising stock prices pushed U.S. household net worth up by $3 trillion to $70.3 trillion, a record before adjusting for inflation. [WSJ] But per household and adjusted for inflation, it’s still about 10% below the 2007 peak. [UBS]

Harvard Business School expects women to comprise 41% of the incoming class this fall, according to preliminary data. That’s up from 40% last year and 35% in 2003. [Bloomberg Businessweek]

In 1970, children made up 33% of California’s population. By 2030, that is projected to decline to 21%. [USC]

Economists estimate that by 2016, it will take just 35,000 new jobs a month to keep the unemployment rate steady. [WSJ]

Turmoil in Turkey is rolling its financial markets: The benchmark Bourse Istanbul 100 lost nearly 5% Thursday; it’s down nearly 19% since May 22. The lira lost another 1% against the dollar Thursday, and government bond yields rose 0.6 percentage points to 6.91%. [WSJ]

For critical perspectives on politics and the economy from Jerry Seib & David Wessel, visit Seib & Wessel.

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Washington Wire is one of the oldest standing features in American journalism. Since the Wire launched on Sept. 20, 1940, the Journal has offered readers an informal look at the capital. Now online, the Wire provides a succession of glimpses at what’s happening behind hot stories and warnings of what to watch for in the days ahead. The Wire is led by Reid J. Epstein, with contributions from the rest of the bureau. Washington Wire now also includes Think Tank, our home for outside analysis from policy and political thinkers.